


Cold Water

by prizewinningfruitcake



Series: Smitten [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Again, Angst, Class Issues, F/M, Fluff, Smut, and SMUT, class issues should be the title of the dang series tbh, not in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 11:23:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15971312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prizewinningfruitcake/pseuds/prizewinningfruitcake
Summary: Alistair's haunted by bad memories, and overwhelmed with his responsibilities, but someone's got his back - and is game to jump in a lake with him even though she can't swim.





	Cold Water

Even after they saved her husband and her son, Lady Isolde still looks at him disgusted, and she looks at Halsa worse. Like she’s about to order her to scrub the chamber pots. Alistair doubts she’s ever seen an elf who isn’t a servant. 

Redcliffe looks more familiar now, rebuilt in the months after the siege. He woke in a guest room with a view of the windmill overlooking the stables and kennel. He felt sick to his stomach. He’d thought of it before, to return a Grey Warden, his own man. They were sorry in his daydreams, ashamed of how they’d treated him. But Eamon only looks vaguely uncomfortable. Isolde looks almost murderous.

“Al- er, Warden Alistair,” Edward, Eamon’s footman, appears in the doorway, “the Arl requests your presence in the study if you please.” 

Alistair and Edward used to be friends, a lifetime ago. They used to swipe tools from the stable and play like jousting knights. Now he’s grown and taken his father’s place with the servants. Alistair wonders if the elder Edward passed on.

He says, “I’ll be right there,” and Edward gives a good-natured nod.

Eamon’s study is just how Alistair remembered, one row of neatly shelved books on the wall, a huge sword mounted over the fireplace - the Arl sitting with his grey head inclined towards some letter or treatise. It could be ten years ago but for Alistair’s height, and Eamon’s obvious decline in health. He looks pinched and frayed, skeletal almost. 

“You, uh...sent for me?” 

“Alistair,” Eamon looks at him a long time before motioning him in, “sit down.”

He pulls a chair before the desk and sits, feeling like the subject of some grim judgement.

Raising a stack of papers, Eamon says, “I’ve begun to call for a Landsmeet. It may be a somewhat arduous process, but you will need to prepare for when the time does come.”

 _Prepare for what exactly?_ He dares not ask. “Should I send for Warden Tabris?”

Eamon shakes his head. “I doubt your fellow Warden has a great deal of interest in this matter.”

Halsa would come at his throat for that. “The fuck does that mean,” she’d say. Alistair isn’t bold like her.

Eamon continues. “To the best of our knowledge, you hold the only legitimate claim to the throne. The Landsmeet will-”

“You can’t possibly expect me to do that,” he interrupts. A sickly flush creeps up his back, sweat beading on his neck.

Eamon says quietly, “I understand that you carry...resentment. I likely would myself in your place.”

“Resentment?” Alistair blinks. “I don’t know if I _resent_ it, but I did get the impression I wasn’t good for much other than mucking the stables.”

Eamon lowers his head. “I cannot change the past, Alistair. I carry many regrets regarding you, my boy. More than anything else.”

 _My boy._ Alistair remembers, just before he was sent away, hearing Eamon say it to Connor and burning with envy. He was ashamed of the feeling then and he’s ashamed now. 

“I ask nothing for myself; I ask you to serve Ferelden,” Eamon says. “As Duncan would have had you do.”

There’s something hot rising in his throat. He thinks he may really vomit. 

“I need to go,” he stands unsteady. 

Eamon lets him pass without comment. At least Alistair doesn’t think he hears anything as he staggers into the hall. 

Paintings, tapestries, revered objects whirl by, barely formed from memory. He doesn’t know where he’s going; he always got lost in this place even as a child.

He turns a corner and hears Halsa, her bright barking laugh. He finds the open doorway and there she is, sitting on a bed with Morrigan. She smiles when she sees him and his heart swells. 

“Something you need?” Morrigan says, scowling.

“Halsa-” He motions for her to come with him. She comes to the doorway, and he takes her by the hand, moving fast. 

She allows him to pull her along. “You better tell me what’s going on,” she says.

“I want to go somewhere,” he says, and she doesn’t ask any further. 

Halsa ends up leading them to an exit. The sun is out for the first time in days, pink buds forming on the trees outside the gate. He strides with purpose towards the lake. 

“Now I know where we’re going,” he says.

“ _Now_ you know.” Halsa shakes her head. 

They clamber over the hills, a chilly breeze from over the lake. There’s a place he likes, or used to like, out by the cliffs. There’s a rock jutting out near the cliffs, perfect for jumping.

“You’re fucking daft, Pilgrim” she says as he sheds his coat and drops it onto the ground. 

Lifting his shirt, he says, “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Not complaining, mind you,” she says, a hand on his waist as he toes off his boots. “You gonna go in?”

He nods, and bounds up the rocks, unlacing his trousers. “Come with me,” he calls back to her.

“Off _that_?” She’s shaking her head. “Naw, don’t think so.”

“You’ll go into the Deep Roads, Halsa,” he shouts, stepping out of the rest of his clothes. “You’ll go into the Fade, but you won’t jump off a rock.”

“I didn’t _want_ to go to any of that, did I?” she says.

“Fair enough.” He takes a running jump, Halsa shrieks, and his stomach flips; he shatters the surface of the water, freezing for a moment before floating back up. He spits out a mouthful and sucks air in, shallow gasps. He forgot how cold the water is in spring.

He finds his bearings, turning back towards the shore. Halsa shrieks again but joyfully this time.

“Come in!” His voice cracks when he calls back to her.

“I can’t swim,” she says.

“I’ll come and get you.”

“Fine.” She climbs up the rocks, shedding clothes on the way. She stops at the top, and wags a finger at him. “You better get me, Pilgrim. I didn’t come all this way to die in a lake.”

“I won’t let you die,” he promises. 

She’s beautiful like that, standing naked and shivering, shaking out her limbs. He wants to remember her exactly here. He thinks he’ll need it later.

“Run a bit before you jump,” he says, “you want to land in the deep part.”

She nods and steps back and launches into the water. No hesitation; once she’s decided to do something, she does it. He starts out towards the splash and waits for her to surface. She comes up gasping, and doesn’t stop. 

“Fuck, it’s cold,” she stammers, her head bobbing in and out of the water. She lets out a squeak, and he swims faster. 

He reaches out and pulls her in, her arms tight around his neck. She feels small, curled up with her teeth chattering. But he would never say that. He wants to kiss her there, but it’s surprisingly hard work to keep them afloat. As he tows her back, she keeps telling him to go faster and it’s hard to swim while laughing. 

He drags them both onto the sand and lies panting. Halsa stands up and wrings out her hair. The sun has warmed their scattered clothes a bit.

“Never jumped in water like that before,” she says as they dress.

“Doesn’t Denerim have an ocean _and_ a river?” he asks.

“You don’t get in those.”

“I guess you wouldn’t jump off the docks,” he says as they ramble back down to the water, carrying their boots. “But surely outside the city you could.”

“Yeah, but I never went out of the city. How would I?” She sits with legs extended on a slab of rock. 

“Oh, right,” he says. It boggles him to think of her confined to one place. “Well as new experiences go, I hope it beats fighting darkspawn.”

He joins her and she reaches for him, tipping his head down to kiss him. He folds into her, a hand on her face as he presses against her lips, and she holds him tight around his waist. No matter how many times she has been, his heart still hammers when she’s this close.

“Warm me up,” she says against his lips. She moves him, pulls him on top of her. Every bit of her is cold, her hands on his lower back make him gasp, and he breathes hot into her neck. 

Her hair smells like the lake. She whimpers and bucks against him as he runs his tongue along the edge of her ear, two strong thighs squeezing around him. He moans, strangled, involuntary, his cock twitching. She whispers, “fuck,” and grabs his arse with both hands, trails fingers upward along his spine. 

A glance around to make sure they’re alone, and he opens her shirt, bracing himself on an elbow to bury his face in her chest. She gasps and sighs at the attention, his mouth and hands caressing her. She’s so soft, though less than she used to be, whittled down by constant work, constant fighting, constant fear. He gathers her up, crushes her against him, and tries to think of nothing else.

“I need you,” he breathes, barely audible but she hears him, her eyes widening. A question hovers in them for just a moment but then her mouth is open again on his, pinpricks from her fingernails on the back of his head.

They struggle with their clothes, laces and fasteners. He feels her shift underneath him to move past the waistband of his trousers. He heaves, his best effort not to fuck her hand - moans muffled, foreheads pressed together as she maneuvers to take him in. 

It’s hard to move, fit tight together, restricted. Halsa holds his gaze, a hand on his hip to guide him. They rock together, carefully, bated breath. His knees and elbows ache, grinding into the rock. He grits his teeth as she pulls him deeper, presses her feet against the backs of his legs, ragged breath. So close. 

A distinct _rip_ cuts the silence, stitches bursting as she moves her legs apart, and they’re freed. They rut, abandoning restraint, and she comes gasping and moaning and clawing his back. He follows on hands and knees, spilling onto the rock beneath them. 

They rearrange themselves and catch their breath, laughter hovering between them as she examines the torn seam down the middle of her trousers. 

“Maybe no one will notice,” he says finally, brimming over, and a snort escapes her. She throws her head back, shoulders bouncing. 

“Oh, now they’ll _really_ love me at the castle,” she says, trying to pull the gap closed. It’s useless - they’re split beyond repair. 

“I’ll trade you,” he says. “They’ve seen my bits before.”

They don’t move to return just yet. They lay entwined, her head on his chest, huddled against the cool wind coming off the lake. 

“We’ll need to go back to Denerim now, won’t we?” Halsa says. There’s a flatness in her voice - dread, even, but he could be imagining it.

“Yes, Eamon said he’s called a Landsmeet,” he says. “You’re not looking forward to going home?”

He can’t see her face very well, but he feels her shrug under his arm. “I want to see everyone, I just -” she sighs. “I left a mess behind, I think.”

She hasn’t gone into much detail about what happened before she left with Duncan, and if Alistair is honest he hasn’t asked after it much. Not for lack of interest, but he senses a well of tragedy he isn’t sure either of them are ready to go down.

“So,” she says, “what are we supposed to do at the Lands thing?”

He should tell her; he wants to, and she ought to know what may be coming. “Pray the Archdemon crashes it,” he says.

She laughs. “That’s what they get, bunch of rich folk standing around talking about thrones and shit during a Blight.”

“Halsa?” He shifts to look at her.

“Yeah?” 

“If we make it through this…” he takes a breath, “I want to stay with you. With the Wardens.”

Her face changes, eyebrows knit together. She reaches up and holds his jaw. “Do you mean with me...specifically?”

“Of course,” he says, and she nods and lets go, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Alright, well we’ll do it then. We’ll stay together.” She says it like it’s simple. Or maybe like she wants it to be. “Whatever happens, you’ve got my back and I’ve got yours.”

They walk back together. She trails close behind him, holding her trousers together the best she can. They’re not much but they’ve gotten this far somehow. They’re not much but they’re all each other has.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you like my junk, consider following me on Tumblr. https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gothkimmyschmidt


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